


Fancy Meeting You Here

by MaethorialBelle



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 19:51:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4492491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaethorialBelle/pseuds/MaethorialBelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zarla Hawke and Commander Cullen reunite at Skyhold after too many years of bitterness between them. Will they put the past behind them or take their grudge to the grave?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fancy Meeting You Here

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this about my Hawke but kept her name out of it in case you wanted to imagine yours.

“So, nice place you’ve got here; though I suppose when the last place you called home was named the gallows anything’s a bonus.”

Cullen stilled his shuffling of various war reports to throw a jaded glare toward his intruder, who lounged lazily against his doorframe. “Not now Hawke” he grumbled; guard raised and hackles fully up. “I’d appreciate if you took the lecture elsewhere.”

“Lecture?” Hawke echoed as she raised a wild eyebrow, “Since when have I ever been the lecturing sort? Oh you mean that time you forced your way into my home as soon as my back was turned and kidnapped my sister.”

Cullen scoffed as he crossed his arms loosely over his chest; his patience thin and overworked from not enough sleep and far too many nightmares. “There wasn’t any force involved and it certainly wasn’t kidnap. Besides, you were harbouring an apostate, you should be thankful your family weren’t imprisoned; or far worse. ”

Cullen watched as Hawke stood straight, the duel daggers resting against her back glinting as she moved; he watched as her ever-easy manner slipped into something far more sinister. Her time spent fleeing, fighting, fending off far more danger than any one woman deserved to be in hadn’t been easy on her; scars littered one half of her face and another marred the left side of her scalp, scarcely hidden under barely-there hair.

“Having said that,” Cullen continued before she had the time to bare her fangs and sink them deep into his flesh. “I had wanted to ask for your forgiveness; Bethany posed no threat and came with us willingly. I should have shown some leniency that day; at the very least I could have given you a moment to say goodbye. I regret that, I wanted you to know.” Cullen wasn’t sure if the champion of Kirkwall, all clever lines and smooth tongue, quick witted and unflappable, could ever be stunned to silence, though he could have sworn he saw the briefest of smiles quirk her lip. Cullen supposed it was his imagination, he knew he could live for a thousand years and never see Hawke smile, not at him.

“Well, how am I supposed to yell at you now?” Hawke’s joviality, tired but tangible, returned too quickly for Cullen to believe he’d fully soothed the sting of an old, festering wound. She looked at him once more; Cullen suspected her glower was born more from weariness than any real malice. “This doesn’t make it all better you know.”

“I know.”

“But,” Hawke drawled, hesitating as though she could taste the words she was about to speak and was yet undecided on whether she liked how they felt on her tongue. “It helps that you walked away and took off the skirt; that can’t have been easy.”

 _Easier than I ever wanted it to be_ Cullen thought solemnly, nodding his head to Hawke in place of an admission. She didn’t need to hear him speak of regrets and exhaustion; she had worn it too well and for too long to not be able to recognise it in every line on his face, every subtle breath, every measured move he made.

Hawke made to leave after silence started to linger, unwelcome but not so uncomfortable as to make Cullen paw at his neck. All that needed saying had been said; everything else was too muddled, too complex, too wrapped up in the mess of the world to fix with apologies and promises to do better.

“Oh and before I leave, I’m just dying to know,” Hawke said as she dawdled in the doorway, “did you really never notice Anders wandering around Kirkwall for a decade? He carried a staff and everything; seems like that should have been more of a concern, _commander_.”

Hawke disappeared out into the sun, with a smirk less forced than the one she’d come in with, before Cullen could answer. _Thank the maker_ he mumbled under his breath, scratching at his neck with a sigh of relief; eternity didn’t offer up enough time for him to think up an excuse good enough for that colossal failure.


End file.
